Goalies are a different species from your average hockey player. Good ones can be tall or short, fat or thin, nervous or serene. They can have weird habits (Patrick Roy talked to his goalposts, Glenn Hall threw up before every game and Jacques Plante knit his own caps and socks. Gilles Gratton thought he was from outer space) or seem like the most average guy in the room. There is no perfect mold for the ideal goaltender.
That's why drafting them is such a crapshoot.
Three times in NHL history a goalie has gone first overall. Habs' pick Michel Plasse was the first in 1968 and he had an unremarkable career, bouncing around pro and semi-pro teams with a lifetime GAA of 3.79 and save percentage of 0.881. Then in 2000, the Islanders went wildly off the board taking Rick DiPietro first in the draft. His career was hampered by injuries, but he put up respectable numbers in his 319 NHL games. In 2003, the Penguins chose to spend the first pick on Marc Andre Fleury. Of course, Fleury has gone on to win three Stanley Cups, a Vezina Trophy and is a sure-fire Hall of Famer. Three goalies taken first overall with three very different career outcomes.
To paraphrase Forrest Gump, with goalies you never know what you're going to get.
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When the Canadiens drafted Carey Price fifth overall in 2005, everyone expected him to be a rock star. From early recognition as a WJC-winning goalie to a Calder Cup championship in Hamilton, Price found success everywhere he went. Even during the "Price vs. Halak" debates in 2010 then-GM Bob Gainey came to Price's defence, calling him a thoroughbred. Jaro Halak meanwhile, after carrying the Habs that playoff year, got traded away. You get a lot of do-overs when you're a talented goalie and a first-round draft pick.
When the Canadiens drafted Jakub Dobes in 2020, the story was very different. He was a fairly unheralded Czech junior with good size and a toolbox full of unfished skills. He was still around in the fifth round when most NHL scouts are looking for long-term project potential and hope to strike gold. Nobody was really expecting much. Aside from Brendan Gallagher, picked in 2010, no Habs fifth-rounder has made much of an impression in the last twenty years.
Dobes has been a more-than-happy surprise. In Price's first season, he played 41 games, won 24 and put up a 2.56 GAA and a .920 save percentage with three shutouts. So far this year, Dobes has played 38 games with 26 wins, a 2.73 GAA and .903 save percentage. Not too shabby for a fifth-round pick on a rebuilding team that's had defensive issues most of the year..
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One of the criticisms the Canadiens face as they push for the playoffs is the risk they're taking of putting their hopes in a pair of rookie goalies. Fortunately, the team has a history of rookies shining in the post-season. Bill Durnan won the Cup and the Vezina in his first season in the NHL. Ken Dryden actually won rookie of the year after he won his first Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy. Patrick Roy played a huge role in winning the 1986 championship in his first season. Steve Penney dragged a mediocre Canadiens team through to the conference finals in 1984 with some great goaltending. So, no, Habs fans are not afraid of going into the first round with a pair of rookies in net.
In fact, sometimes inexperience is a good thing. These guys don't know what is supposed to happen, so they just go with what is happening. It's all a big adventure right now, like WWI recruits heading off to whip the Huns and be home by Christmas, not realizing the reality of the trenches.
The beauty of this is if Dobes should falter in the run up to the playoffs, or in the early rounds, the Canadiens have Jacob Fowler. He's the guy Price says reminds him of him. He's going to be a star goalie too. So yeah, Habs fans are not scared of rookie goalies.
The thing with goalies is you never know what you're going to get, but sometimes you end up with a Faberge when you thought you had a Cadbury egg. It may be possible the Canadiens have two of them.
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